


Idiotic Ideas: A Tale of Five Christmases

by reymanova (costiellie)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, FitzSimmons Secret Santa, literally just a huge mound of fluff, with the briefest touch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9130876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/costiellie/pseuds/reymanova
Summary: In which five holiday seasons are filled with five idiotic ideas (of varying degrees of idiocy).





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delicatelyglitterywriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicatelyglitterywriter/gifts).



> Unbetaed, because when have I ever finished something more than five minutes before it's due?

_The Academy, December 2004_

“Don’t you think this is an idiotic idea?” Jemma asked, trailing Fitz as he led them out the doors of their dorm building. “Our chemistry exam is _tomorrow_ , and we haven’t even gone over the properties of--”

“We’ve been studying all day, Simmons. I think we deserve a little break, yeah?” Fitz turned back to look at her, but she only leveled him with an unimpressed look. “We’re walking half a block to buy snacks, not going off to war. We’ll survive. Now let’s go.” Fitz grabbed Jemma by the arm of her winter coat and nothing short dragged her down the sidewalk for a few steps until she finally kept pace with him on her own. 

“I suppose studies do show that it’s good for your brain to take regular study breaks,” she conceded.

“Exactly! And we haven’t taken a break in hours. Plus, you should never study on an empty stomach.”

Jemma squinted. “I thought it was that you shouldn’t shop on an empty stomach. Or drink alcohol. Or both.”

“No, it’s definitely study.”

Before Jemma could shoot back with an answer, however, Fitz stepped just a little too quickly, and found himself slipping and sliding on a patch of black ice. After flailing awkwardly for a moment, he fell squat on his but, half on the sidewalk and half in the snow. 

Squabble forgotten, Jemma rushed over and knelt next to Fitz, hands fluttering as if they couldn’t quite decide where to go. “Are you okay? Did you break anything?”

“I’m fine,” Fitz grumbled, blushing a bit at her ministrations (although he couldn’t quite figure out why). “Just a bit… snowy,” he finished lamely, gesturing with his head towards to the whole side of his body, leaning into the snowbank, and his arm, elbow-deep in snow. He shifted his weight slightly to shake himself free of snow, and was about to pull his arm out of the snow when he stopped and put it back in, suddenly struck with an idea.

“What? Did something happen?” Jemma asked, brow furrowed at his sudden change of direction.

“Oh, no,” Fitz said nonchalantly. “Just…” And at that, he pulled his arm out, now armed with a small snowball, and threw it squarely at Jemma’s nose. 

“Fitz!” she cried, indignant, and nose looking much redder than it had a moment before. When she was greeted only by another snowball, larger and more carefully formed this time, she scrambled up. “Oh, you’re _on_ ,” she said, eyes narrowing, and reaching into the snow to pack her own snowball.

Needless to say, it was a good 40 minutes before they went back to studying.

 

 

_Sci-Ops, December 2009_

“Don’t you think this is an idiotic idea?” Jemma asked.

“I’ll remind you -- for the third time -- that Agent Callahan okay’ed it,” Fitz said, not looking up from where he fiddled with the control panel of his new drones.

Jemma took off her lab goggles and rested them on her forehead, huffing. “And what does he know?”

Fitz finally tore his eyes from his task and looked up at Jemma quizzically. “Uh, he’s our boss."

“Well, you really should’ve run it by the Department of Safety--”

“We have a Department of Safety?”

“Ugh, Fitz. Of course we have a Department of Safety. Didn’t you read the safety handbook?”

“We have a safety handbook?”

Jemma threw her hands up in exasperation. “You’re going to kill us all, Fitz. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Finally satisfied with the drone’s work, Fitz landed it carefully on the counter, setting the control panel down next to it. “Simmons. I’m putting up garland, not testing mustard gas.”

Jemma rounded the counter, hands full of samples, and blew past him in a huff. “In the lab! Using experimental and untested drone technology! The room is full of highly volatile reactive substances, and you’re putting us all in danger. One thing goes wrong, and poof! We’re dead!”

Fitz rolled his eyes, leaning back on the counter and admiring his handiwork. The garland really did look quite nice strung about around the room, if he was honest -- it made the usually stark and sterile lab look significantly warmer and far more festive. “I think you’re just jealous.”

Jemma turned to look at him, her jaw dropped open. “What -- m-me? Jealous? Of your, your _dangerous_ holiday decorations? No, absolutely not. That’s preposterous. I have no idea where you got such a… such a silly notion.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Fitz smirked. “Oh, you are _so_ jealous.”

“I… I, no, I just…” At Fitz’s disbelieving look, she let out a sigh and stomped her foot childishly. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. But usually I’m the one with all the holiday cheer, and this year you’ve been showing me up.”

Unable to help himself, Fitz barked out a laugh. “You think I’m trying to show you up with holiday cheer?”

She threw up her arms. “Well, you try to show me up in every other aspect of our lives!” 

Fitz’s face softened, and he approached Jemma, placing a hand on each of her shoulders and looking her in the eye. “Simmons. I promise I’m not trying to show you up with Christmas cheer. I just thought it would be nice, that’s all.” 

“Oh,” Jemma responded shortly, looking a bit sheepish. 

“But, like… if this was a contest, I would be winning, right?” 

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Ugh, Fitz.” She pushed his arms off of her good-naturedly and turned back to her work, unsuccessfully hiding a smile as she did so. 

They worked in contented silence for a moment before Fitz finally broke it.

“Simmons?”

Jemma sighed. “What?”

“I was kidding about the safety handbook.”

“You better have been.”

 

 

_The Bus, December 2013_

“Don’t you think this is an idiotic idea?” Jemma asked, reluctantly following Fitz as he tiptoed through the darkened common room towards the garage. “Coulson is our boss. He reserves every right to fire us at any moment.”

“He’s not going to fire us, Simmons. And c’mon, you saw Skye’s face when she told us about this idea. Do you really want to let her down? On Christmas Eve, of all days?”

“When have any of Skye’s ideas ever been good?” 

“Um, excuse you, Jemma Simmons,” Skye’s voice stage whispered from somewhere in front of them. A moment later, her head peeked out from around the corner. “My ideas are phenomenal. It’s not my fault you’re so afraid of getting into a bit of, and I quote, _bad girl shenanigans_. Now come on.”

“Bad girl what?” Fitz asked, bemused.

Skye smiled mischievously. “Well, Simmons here--”

“Let’s get this over with,” Simmons huffed, hastily pushing past the other two towards the garage. She had hardly stepped out into the open area when she froze at the top of stairs, mouth gaping. “Skye?”

“Yes?” Skye answered, the smile never leaving her face.

“Exactly how many Christmas decorations did you _buy_?” 

The garage floor before them was covered by no fewer than twelve boxes of various holiday decorations -- string lights, ornaments, garland, wreaths -- you name it, it was there.

The woman in question shrugged and began to make her way down the spiral staircase into the garage, the others following. “Technically, I only bought like, three boxes. The rest is either stuff I already had in my van, or stuff that I managed to snag from that really sick undercover costume and prop room they had at the last base we visited.”

Jemma’s eyes widened almost comically. “You _stole_ from a SHIELD base?”

“I like to think of it as relocation. I mean, the Bus _is_ a SHIELD plane. It hasn’t technically left SHIELD’s hands.”

“I can’t believe you dragged us into this. Not only are we defacing Coulson’s pride and joy, but we are doing so with _stolen goods_.”

Arms crossed, Skye rounded on Fitz. “Fitz, can you please tell your woman that decorating Lola is a fun and festive way to bring some holiday cheer onto this plane, and that if she participates she gets to share the glory?”

“My… my what?”

“Ugh.” Skye rolled her eyes. “Just tell her.”

Fitz shrugged halfheartedly. “I mean, as long as we don’t chip the paint, I don’t really see the harm.”

Jemma sighed. “Well, I’m already an accessory to this crime. If you’re gonna do this, I’m gonna at least make sure you do it right.”

Skye cheered, wrapping Jemma up in a hug. “Then what first, Captain?”

“Garland,” Jemma said. “Always garland.” Fitz’s eyes lit up, but before he could even open his mouth, she put a hand up. “No, Fitz, we are not using drones for this.”

 

 

_The Playground, December 2015_

“Don’t you think this is an idiotic idea?” Jemma asked.

Fitz looked up in alarm, freezing with his knife halfway into the apple he was chopping. Surely his control over his hands wasn’t what it once was, but he was quite capable of cutting up some fruit, thank you very much. He started to shoot back an annoyed response, but stopped himself when he realized that Jemma wasn’t looking at him at all. Instead, she had that slightly glazed-over look in her eyes that she got when she was thinking a little too much. 

“I just… I know it was my idea and I dragged you into it, but I just keep thinking that there is no circumstance where this goes well. I mean, will Christmas pudding and a bunch of Americans really mix? You saw Daisy’s face when she first saw the suet we brought back from the store.”

Fitz only shrugged and kept chopping. “Daisy can make whatever comments she wants, but you know that when it comes down to it that girl’ll eat anything.”

“But what if everyone hates it, hm?”

“Hunter won’t hate it.”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Aside from Hunter.”

“More for us, then,” Fitz said, popping a bit of apple into his mouth. 

“Seriously, Fitz? You’re not worried at all?”

Fitz only shrugged. “We’ve actually got the whole team here for once, safe and alive and celebrating the holidays together. I don’t think anybody’s gonna care what we eat.”

Jemma nodded thoughtfully. Then, after a moment, she smiled, the kind that started slowly and grew until it filled her whole face, and gave Fitz a soft look that he couldn’t quite place. “You’re awfully sentimental tonight,” she noted.

In spite of himself, Fitz found himself blushing slightly. “I guess I just… I wasn’t sure if we’d ever get to do this again. We’re constantly out on assignment and you never know if…” He trailed off, finding himself unable to meet Jemma’s eyes. 

She placed a hand softly on his arm. “You never know if what, Fitz?” 

He took a deep breath, and for a moment he was seeing a very different Jemma: weak, tired, but beautiful as ever in a world tinted with blue. He shook the image out of his head. “You never know if… I never know if you’re gonna make it home.”

That _look_ crossed Jemma’s face again, and it was like the world had slowed down. Her mouth slid into a slow smile, and he suddenly became hyper-aware that her hand was still resting on his arm. There was a certain charge in the air that reminded him of _that_ day in the lab where he lost all inhibitions and kissed his best friend, and with the memory intruding into his mind he found himself unable to look away from her lips, trying to remember what they felt like against his, and...

“What weird British things are you making now?” Daisy asked, bounding into the room and breaking the spell. Both Jemma and Fitz jumped a foot in the air, Fitz bringing his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. Daisy, seemingly realizing that she had interrupted something (although _what_ she had interrupted, Fitz wasn’t quite so sure), raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more on the subject, and reverted back to their cooking. “Ew, that looks gross! Can I poke it?”

After a feeble and fruitless attempt to shoo Daisy away from the kitchen, Jemma leaned back against the counter next to Fitz and blew a strand of hair out of her face. As they watched her inspect the half-made pudding with wide eyes, Fitz leaned over and spoke softly in Jemma’s ear. “Worst comes to worst, we order pizza.”

 

 

_Their Apartment, December 2016_

“Don’t you think this is an idiotic idea?” Fitz asked. 

He kicked the front door closed behind him and set the bag of wrapping paper down on the floor, then shrugging off his coat and crossing the mostly-empty room to the lit-up Christmas tree, before which Jemma was balanced precariously on none other than a wheeled desk chair. Upon arriving at her perch, he gently grabbed hold of her thighs to stabilize her. 

“You gotta have the right color balance.” 

Fitz squinted. “What?”

“I foolis-foolishly entrusted you to put the or-ormanents on the top part because I am little and you are less little, but you put all the blue ones on top,” Jemma slurred, placing her hands on either one of Fitz’s shoulders and leaning on him. “So I’m fixing it.”

“And you decided the way to do so was to stand on a rolling desk chair?”

“I’m not stuuuupid, Fitzy. I locked the wheels.”

Fitz sighed. “How much egg nog did you have while I was gone?”

“You were taking too loooong at the store. I got bored.”

“How much egg nog did you have, Jemma?”

“None.” Fitz cocked his head in disbelief. “But I did have half a bottle of wine.” She smiled impishly and pushed off Fitz’s shoulders to spin the chair in a circle. 

In spite of himself, Fitz laughed fondly. “And I suppose safety violations are to be thrown out the window when we’re a bit drunk, then, are they?”

Jemma pouted. “It was the only chair I could find. I couldn’t very well move the sofa. And I was veeeerrrrrry…” She trailed off, staring intently at something somewhere behind Fitz’s head.

“Very what?”

“Oh. I was very careful,” Jemma answered, booping Fitz on the nose. 

“Okay, Jems, I think it’s time we get you down, hmm?” 

Fitz grabbed Jemma around the waist and started to lift her over the armrest of the chair, but she wriggled against him, fighting to stay on the chair. “Nooooo, Fitzy-itzy. I have to fizz the tree.”

“Fitzy-itzy…?” He shook his head. _Not important right now, Fitz._ “You mean you have to fix the tree?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“How about we fix it tomorrow? I’m thinking that someone needs to get to bed.”

“Nooooo,” Jemma whined. “I don’t wanna go to bed.”

Fitz sighed. “You’re a child, you are,” he mumbled, before he picked her up and pulled her off the chair completely, in spite of Jemma’s weak, slightly drunken attempts to stay put. 

He half-led, half-carried her into their brand new bedroom, only furnished with a mattress on the floor and the box for an unbuilt IKEA dresser shoved in the corner. Jemma flopped herself onto the bed with her clothes still on, her previous protests apparently forgotten, and cuddled up onto Fitz's pillow, looking completely content. As he looked at her, Fitz couldn't help but think that their apartment might be sparse, and bare, and completely unfinished (aside, of course, from their Christmas tree), but as he looked at Jemma sprawled out on the mattress -- _their_ mattress -- no place had felt quite so much like home.

"Fitz?" Jemma mumbled into the pillow, muffled by the fabric.

"Hm?"

"I love you."

Fitz smiled. "I love you too, Jemma."

"Even if you do put all the blue ornaments in one spot."

**Author's Note:**

> Hannah, I know that according to your headcanon, it was May who first decorated Lola. But I didn’t remember that until it was mostly written, and I wanted to keep the focus moreso on the Bus kids, so I hope you don’t mind my slight alteration :)
> 
> Also, I know literally nothing about Christmas pudding, and gathered all of my current knowledge of it from Google, so apologies if I got anything wrong.


End file.
